They led him at gunpoint to the door of the building, where the leader punched in the keypad combination. The man blocked Peter’s view, but he hoped Liaison could see it.
The door opened and Peter entered. With luck Liaison also made it through with the group.
The men in the building glared at him with cold expressions.
They led him into a small room with unpainted cinder-block walls. In the middle of the room was a large chair equipped with thick straps. On a table to the left rested several machines that Peter couldn’t identify.
Second, third, and fourth thoughts about the wisdom of his plan began to fill Peter’s mind.
“Sit down.”
With feigned confusion, Peter asked, “Why?”
“Spirits! You are stupid, aren’t you? Do it because I said so!”
“But why…?”
One of the guards slammed the butt of his rifle into Peter’s back. Peter’s spine was getting quite sore. He decided to comply, and hoped to stall in the chair.
Once he was seated, several guards set about wrapping the straps around his wrists and ankles, his waist and his neck. Peter thought of the hospital, and for an instant he thought of the guards as the orderly. Helplessness seeped through his body.
“Give me the box,” said the leader.
One of the guards pulled a rotting wooden box off the table. A hand crank rose from its top, and two cables coiled out from something that looked like a generator.
“This one is a bit old-fashioned, but we’ve found it does wonders for trogs like you.” One guard wrapped a cable around Peter’s neck just above the strap, another wrapped the second cable around his right wrist. The bare cables felt cold and smooth against his skin.
Peter realized they had tied him to a primitive taser.
The leader held the box in his right hand and took the handle of the crank in his left, then began to turn the crank very slowly. Peter watched the magnets in the generator also move very slowly, and as they moved around he felt a tingle at his wrist and around his neck. His neck and arm muscles felt warm and frozen and prickly. It was gentle, but threatening.
He didn’t want the torture to go on. “Aren’t you going to ask me questions?”
“Not yet. First I want to hurt you, like your brother hurt my men.”
“It wasn’t me that hurt them.” He felt an edge of pleading in his voice, and was ashamed of it.
“And I wasn’t one of the guys who got hurt. It doesn’t matter.”
Something in the man’s words got caught in Peter’s mind, and for an instant he thought about Thomas. But before he could pursue the notion, the leader turned the handle quickly around. Peter’s back arched as the jolt shot through his spine. His fingers spread out and became so taut that he thought they might snap off his hand. His neck strained at the strap holding him down. He realized he was choking himself, but could not control his actions.
All he could hear was the whirring of the rusted hand crank and the sound of his own choked breath.
The leader stopped.
“Pretty impressive for low tech, huh?”
Peter gasped for air, unable to answer. “Please…”
The crank turned again, and once more Peter felt his body straining against his bonds. He imagined the muscles in his neck bulging out through his flesh, bloated and ruined.
The leader relented once more. Peter went slack in the chair.
“Now, what did we just learn? You don’t speak unless I ask you a question. Got it?”
Peter wanted to answer, but it was as if his face were too far away to make his mouth work.
“One more lesson…”
Once more the crank turned. This time his arm began to shake uncontrollably. When the cranking stopped, his muscles did not. The arm kept shaking and shaking.
“When I ask you something, you answer. Got it?”
“Y…y…yes,” Peter managed to stutter. It took immense effort to speak the words. He didn’t know how they expected him to answer their questions like this. A thought worked its way back through his head. Maybe they didn’t expect him to. Maybe they could punish him more for failing.
“Now, where is your brother?”
He knew he shouldn’t just answer, he had to stall for Liaison. But if he kept lying… ?
The door opened.
Thank Bear, he thought. A reprieve. A moment of distraction.
With great effort he turned his face toward the newcomer.
Pig-face.
The man’s face was harsh and determined and weary. He smiled as he looked to the other men in the room. A true sadness passed among the assembly, a silent respect for their fallen comrades.
Peter thought for sure he was dead now.
He felt something press against his boot.
He glanced down. The strap around his left ankle slowly slid out of its buckle.
Liaison.
He started to breathe more comfortably.
“I hear you’ve got the brother of the troll.”
“That’s right,” said the leader.
Pig-face stepped forward.
Peter felt Liaison working on the other ankle strap.
“All right, you—” Pig-face began, but stopped short.
Peter turned his head away from Pig-face.
“Wait a minute…” Pig-face grabbed Peter’s head with both his hands and jerked Peter’s face toward him. The motion came abruptly, and it felt as if the man had snapped the muscles of Peter’s neck. His neck shook uncontrollably, feeling as though it would never stop. He wanted to cry out, but he couldn’t control his tongue.
“This is the trog.”
“What?”
“This is the same troll. This is HIM! Same duster, same trog face. Same broken horn. This isn’t his brother. This is the bastard.”
In one quick motion Pig-face had his pistol out and pointed at Peter’s head. “Good-bye, trog.”
A spray of autofire appeared out of thin air, riddling Pig-face’s chest with red blotches.
“You’re up, Prof!” Liaison screamed. His Predator also appeared from thin air and landed on his lap. He realized that in the last few moments she had freed his left hand.
The guards, startled by the invisible assailant, gawked stupidly for a moment before pulling out their guns and looking around. None of them noticed the gun in Peter’s lap.
The guards fired in the direction of the shots, but, of course, Liaison had scrambled over to the other side of the room by that time.
Peter grabbed the gun and began to fire just as Liaison cut a line of lead across the chests of the guards. The guards returned fire. Peter, still trapped by the neck, waist, and one arm, had no way to dodge. Three slugs hit him in the chest and knocked the air out of him. For a moment he was aware only of the sound of a great deal of gunfire.
When he looked up, all the guards were on the ground, some dead, some dying.
“Come on,” Liaison said. She worked the strap around his neck and waist, while Peter clumsily took the strap off his right wrist. Liaison kept saying over and over again, “Breena, Breena, Breena,” in a soft, reverent, and hopeful voice.
An alarm bell rang.
“Frag!” she shouted.
“It’s all right,” Peter said, still so winded from the shots that he had absolutely no idea what was going on, let alone whether everything was all right or not. “My chest,” he wheezed.
“Oh, that does look bad,” said Liaison.
“Good. I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
“Ready?”
“No. Let’s go.”
“Open the door for me. I’ll duck across the hall.”
Peter opened the door, but kept behind it. He waited a beat, then stuck his head out and took pot shots at guards coming up from the front of the building. The guards turned their guns on him, then moved up the hall when Peter ducked back into the room. As they advanced, Liaison opened fire, catching them all off guard. She cut them down, all the while shouting, “Now! Now!”
Peter rushed out of the torture room and down the hall. He knew Liaison ran alongside him, because every few moments a spray of bullets appeared from mid-air and slammed guards against the corridor walls.
They reached the front door. “It’s locked,” she said. A keypad identical to the one outside was on the wall to the left of the door. “Frag!”
“Did you see the combination when we came in?”
“What?”
“Did you see the combination when we came in? Did you see the combination?”
“Yeah? So?”
“Try it.”
“What?”
“Try it. It might be the same.”
He felt her shove her Uzi into his right hand. The hand was still numb, but he could control his muscles again. He turned and fired the gun down the hall, pinning the remaining guards in doorways.
“Nothing,” said Liaison.
“What?”
“Nothing, Prof. What the frag is the point of having two locks with the same combo?”
“Never mind.” He dropped his pistol and raked the face plate off the wall with his left hand. “Fry it. We don’t have to worry about setting off any alarms.”
Some guards grabbed the opportunity created by Peter’s cease-fire. Bullets flew down the hall and slammed around the doorway. Liaison screamed, and a splash of blood spattered the wall.
“Damn,” Peter said under his breath. “You all right?”
“Not for much longer.”
Peter turned his back to the guards and raised his duster to block Liaison from the shots of the guards. He twisted his body to shoot the Uzi down the corridor.
He glanced at the lock, where he could see the wires moving around as if alive. “Frag, that hurt,” she gasped.
“Almost home. Almost home.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Liaison shouted into the talkie. “Kathryn! Now, Kathryn! Let’s go!”
The guards had maneuvered into better positions, and were firing one shot after another into Peter’s back. He felt himself dangerously close to passing out.
He looked down again and saw Liaison appear. She placed one wire against another. The door opened. “YES!”
They ran out through the door toward the closed gate, bullets from the guard tower ripping up the ground around them. A few rounds caught Liaison in the thigh, and she stumbled to the ground.
Peter stopped and ran back for her. She was clutching her wound, and saying, “Oh, Breena. Please, please, don’t let me die.” He dropped the Uzi, picked her up in his massive arms, and continued to run for the gate.
Getting closer, he eyeballed his chances. The gate was solid metal and set on wheels. The car wouldn’t be able to break through it. He’d have to get over it on his own.
He began to pick up speed, running madly for the gate. Desperately ignoring the pain that racked his body, he forced himself to think only of getting over the gate, getting into the car, driving away, seeing Kathryn…. Thinking of anything but the present moment. He shifted Liaison’s limp body to his left arm. Though he hurt bad, his massive troll muscles supported her slight frame.
He got to the wall and leaped as high as he could. As he jumped he heard the squeal of the car stopping outside the wall.
His chest slammed against the metal of the gate. His right hand grabbed instinctively for the wire just above his head, and the barbs dug deep into his palm. He bit his lip against the pain and, with one arm, dragged himself up onto the gate. He wasn’t sure he was going to make it.
“What the frag is happening?” Liaison said in a daze.
From the other side he heard Kathryn shout, “I don’t know how,” and Breena screamed, “Just do it!”
Machine gun fire cut through the night air from the street side of the wall. A fireball rose from the base of the wall and shot through the night straight into the guard tower. The searchlight exploded, and the guards were thrown to the ground far below.
Peter got himself to the top of the gate and ripped the wire out of his way. He pulled Liaison onto his lap. The Americar was just under him now, Kathryn firing an Uzi at another guard tower while Breena stood leaning against the hood.
Just as he was balancing himself to jump to the ground, a thick spray of bullets caught him in the back and knocked him off his feet. As he fell, all Peter could think of was keeping Liaison safe. He held her out in his arm to keep from crushing her when he hit the ground.
The sidewalk arrived sooner than he expected it to. At first he thought his spine had snapped in two, then realized it was no more than immense pain. With one final effort of will, he got up from the ground and onto his feet.
“What happened to her?” Breena demanded as Peter put Liaison in the car.
“Not now,” he shouted. “Let’s go!”
Kathryn ran around to the front passenger seat. Peter pushed Liaison further over along the passenger side and climbed in behind her.
When he looked back, Breena was standing motionless, red and orange sparks glowing all around her hands.
“If you blow yourself on a spell, we’re not going anywhere.”
“If they can catch us, it doesn’t matter how soon we leave.”
She opened her eyes and stared up into the sky. Peter followed her gaze and saw the chopper rising up from behind the wall. Breena raised her hands and flung a fireball at it. The ball sped through the air, then slammed into the craft’s cabin.
A terrible explosion tore through the chopper. The blast threw the guards out into the air, their uniforms in flames. A second explosion cut through the engine, sending shards of metal flying in all directions.
Breena got into the car and slammed the door shut. “That felt fraggin’ good,” she said to no one in particular, then kicked the car into drive.
As they rushed away Peter saw the gate open and a Westwind, a SAAB Dynamit, and a Leyland-Rover van roared out after them.
“We’ve got company.”
“Put Liaison on the floor and pull down the seat.”
Peter obeyed, though doing so was difficult because of his size. When he got the seat down, he saw that it opened into the trunk. His jaw dropped when he saw the mobile arsenal stored within it; grenades, launchers, light machine guns.
“I don’t know how to use half this stuff,” he called up to Breena.
She pushed the gas pedal down hard to gain distance. “I think the Vindicator minigun is your speed, buckeroo. Pass a box of grenades up to Red, here.”
Peter fished out the box and passed it to Kathryn. “What are you doing with a Vindicator in the car?” he said. “Can you even use this thing?”
“Zoze said we might need it, so I took it.”
He handed the box to Kathryn, who took it carefully “All right. What do I do?” she asked.
“First, relax. Thirty years ago you didn’t know how to use a credstick to buy a business suit. You learn as you go.”
“I’m only twenty-eight,” she mumbled.
Bullets from the cars behind them slammed into the rear window. Some bounced off. Others exploded.
“Oh, frag!” exclaimed Breena.
Peter pulled up the Vindicator and saw that the belt snaked its way into a full box sitting in the trunk. Other cables led to a heavy battery belt with a red rocker switch on one of the battery packs. He thumbed it. The mass of metal in his arms began to vibrate and hum as the six heavy barrels at its front started turning. The dull hum quickly grew in pitch as the barrels picked up speed. He barely heard Breena instructing Kathryn as he tried to get a bead on the guards behind them. “Just pull the pins and drop them. They’ll race up and go off. We don’t need to be accurate, we just want to give them a very, very good scare. Hang on, though. I’m going to have to go pretty fast to get the timing to work out.”
She drove the car down the entrance ramp to I-94. The instant she completed the turn, Breena slammed down on the gas, steadily pushing the speed from 130, to 140, to 150 kilometers per hour.
The guards pursued. More explosive shells hit the rear window, creating a web of running fissures.
“Now you fragging pikers! NOW!”
Peter maneuvered the weapon out the left window, hooked his fingernail on the trigger, and fired the machine gun at the Leyland-Rover van, which led the pack behind them. The minigun roared, spitting bullets as fast as the barrels could rotate. Peter quickly lost control of the weapon and let up on the trigger. Some of the bullets hit their target, but most sprayed harmlessly away as the gun jumped in his grip. The van swerved a bit, but stayed hard on their tail.
Explosions suddenly blossomed behind their car, one after another. Turning to look at Kathryn, Peter saw her pulling pins and dropping grenades with the speed of an old-fashioned corn-shucker looking for a bonus.
He turned back and opened fire on the van again, leaning further out and bracing the butt of the weapon against his shoulder. Again, the minigun roared, and again he quickly lost control of it. This time, though, what little accuracy he had must have inspired some fear in the drivers behind them. The pursuing Westwind and Dynamit began maneuvering to use the van as a shield.
Suddenly one of Kathryn’s grenades exploded beneath the Leyland-Rover. It began to swerve wildly, first one way, then the other, before it careened over the guard rail and smashed onto the highway.
The vibration of the minigun tearing into his shoulder, Peter managed to rake the gun’s spray over the armored grill of the Dynamit. He crisscrossed the fire back and forth. On the sixth pass his bullets dug through the vehicle’s armor, penetrating the engine block. The car came to an abrupt stop, down from 150 in an instant, just as the Westwind hit the base of the ramp behind it.
The Westwind tried to swerve, but smashed into the back of the Dynamit, sending them both off the shoulder into a shallow sewage ditch.
“Yes!” Peter cried. “YES! YES! YES!”
Kathryn laughed and cried, her head rocking up and down.
Peter slid back into the car. He turned Liaison over on the floor and reached down to check her pulse.
She had one. That was good enough for now.
And then he passed out.